The role of high school English department heads as active leaders and departmental advocates, as well as their role in improving their departments' composition programs, is examined in this paper. The first section provides an overview of department heads' basic responsibilities, noting the need for them to have an active role in setting priorities for the school's entire program. It then discusses ways the department head can actively participate in recruiting faculty members; the department head's role in orienting new teachers; the importance of a department's having a method of governance, and the department head's role in governance; and ways that department heads can work toward achieving reasonable teaching loads and freeing teachers from nonprofessional chores. The second section offers suggestions for developing an effective composition program. It discusses ways of enlisting the aid of universities in training teachers of writing, describes locally sponsored workshops that have proved valuable in preparing teachers to teach writing, and shows the effects of the recent trend toward phase-elective programs on the development of good composition programs. (GW)